Communication skills in Brazilian pharmaceutical education: a documentary analysis

Objective: To characterize the inclusion of the teaching of communication skills in the curriculum of Pharmacy Schools of Federal Institutions of Higher Education. Methods: An exploratory study of documental analysis of curriculum of Pharmacy Schools was carried out. A convenience sample was selected from undergraduate pharmacy courses of Federal Institutions of Higher Education (IFES). The variables collected were related to the identification of the course, its nature (elective or mandatory), workload, semester, and program content. Results: Among the 49 undergraduate pharmacy courses of IFES, 35 (71.4%) had their curriculum available online. The teaching of communication in health was identified in 26 (74.3%) curriculum. In this study, three courses (7.2%) specifically aimed at teaching communication skills, while 39 (92.9%) had content related to this subject. Most courses (22; 52.4%) belonged to the field of Social, Behavioral, and Administrative Sciences. As for the course period, there was a concentration in the third (19%) and fourth (28.6%) years. The main content present in the curriculum was related to the principles and techniques of health communication (42.8%). Conclusions: Data obtained enabled the identification of gaps in the curricula of undergraduate courses in pharmacy concerning the inclusion of the teaching of communication skills. These results can be used to reflect the current models adopted in Brazil for the teaching of this skills, especially after the recent publication of the new curricular guidelines for undergraduate pharmacy courses

Evaluation of students’ attitudes towards pharmacist–physician collaboration in Brazil

Objective. To measure undergraduate pharmacy and medical students’ collaborative attitudes regarding Pharmacist–Physician collaboration. Methods. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from September 2016 to February 2017 in Northeast Brazil. Pharmacy and medical students from the first and the last year of courses were invited to complete Portuguese version of Scale of Attitudes Toward Pharmacist-Physician Collaboration (SATP2C). Descriptive and comparative analyses were performed using IBM SPSS (22 version). Differences were considered significant when p<0.05. Results. Three hundred seventy students completed the SATP2C. Overall, the students had positive attitudes towards physician-pharmacist collaboration. There was no significant correlation between age and score (p=0.79). Women showed a more positive collaborative attitude than men (53.1, SD=6.8 vs. 55.1, SD=6.3). Pharmacy students had a higher score than medical students (57.5, SD=4.7, vs. 51.1, SD=6.4). The first-year medical students had a higher score than last-year medical students (52.3, SD=6.0 vs. 49.5, SD=6.6; p<0.007). There was no significant difference in the attitudes between the first and last year pharmacy students (p<0.007). Conclusions. Pharmacy and medical students showed positive attitudes towards physician-pharmacist collaboration. However, pharmacy students presented more collaborative attitudes than medical ones. Additionally, the first-year medical students had more collaborative attitudes than last-year medical students. Studies should be conducted to provide recommendations to improve interprofessional education efforts to further enhance the positive attitudes toward physician-pharmacist collaboration

Understanding the provision of a clinical service in mental health and the role of the pharmacist: A qualitative analysis

Pharmacists have important roles in mental health disease; however, their performance in Brazilian Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS) is unknown. This qualitative study was conducted in a CAPS, Brazil; using interviews and analyzes from the perspective of Bardin, in which categories arising from the perceptions of patients and the health team emerged in relation to the provision of the medication review with follow up (MR) service and the role of the pharmacist in mental health. According to the participants, the MR service is essential and important because it allows professional recognition, beyond the identification of professional attributes of the pharmacists. Moreover, there was a duality in the pharmacist’s role between the logistic and clinical attributes of mental health. Thus, this perception helps to elucidate the pharmacist’s process of work in mental health and supports future strategies of action in this area

Nestedness of Ectoparasite-Vertebrate Host Networks

Determining the structure of ectoparasite-host networks will enable disease ecologists to better understand and predict the spread of vector-borne diseases. If these networks have consistent properties, then studying the structure of well-understood networks could lead to extrapolation of these properties to others, including those that support emerging pathogens. Borrowing a quantitative measure of network structure from studies of mutualistic relationships between plants and their pollinators, we analyzed 29 ectoparasite-vertebrate host networks—including three derived from molecular bloodmeal analysis of mosquito feeding patterns—using measures of nestedness to identify non-random interactions among species. We found significant nestedness in ectoparasite-vertebrate host lists for habitats ranging from tropical rainforests to polar environments. These networks showed non-random patterns of nesting, and did not differ significantly from published estimates of nestedness from mutualistic networks. Mutualistic and antagonistic networks appear to be organized similarly, with generalized ectoparasites interacting with hosts that attract many ectoparasites and more specialized ectoparasites usually interacting with these same “generalized” hosts. This finding has implications for understanding the network dynamics of vector-born pathogens. We suggest that nestedness (rather than random ectoparasite-host associations) can allow rapid transfer of pathogens throughout a network, and expand upon such concepts as the dilution effect, bridge vectors, and host switching in the context of nested ectoparasite-vertebrate host networks

Scholarly publishing depends on peer reviewers

The peer-review crisis is posing a risk to the scholarly peer-reviewed journal system. Journals have to ask many potential peer reviewers to obtain a minimum acceptable number of peers accepting reviewing a manuscript. Several solutions have been suggested to overcome this shortage. From reimbursing for the job, to eliminating pre- publication reviews, one cannot predict which is more dangerous for the future of scholarly publishing. And, why not acknowledging their contribution to the final version of the article published? PubMed created two categories of contributors: authors [AU] and collaborators [IR]. Why not a third category for the peer-reviewer